For whatever reason Whale Wars didn’t air last week. But tonight it resumes for the following four weeks, which will conclude the second half of season 4.
Operation No Compromise was highly successful. In seven winters in Antarctica Sea Shepherd had never forced such an abrupt end to a whaling season as during this past campaign.
This isn’t a surprise if you follow/read Sea Shepherd Advocate—or diligently follow Sea Shepherd by other means. However, Whale Wars always surprises me with lots of little details that I didn’t read about during any given campaign.
Take for example episode 4, The Devil’s Icebox (video below). The Bob Barker’s two delta boats were launched on an unprecedented mission whereby they would distract a whaling vessel long enough for the vessels to separate by 20 miles, out of range of the whalers’ radar.
One of the deltas began leaking after a prop-fowler misfire and was forced to stop moving. So both deltas took refuge near an iceberg and called the Bob Barker to initiate a rescue mission. It was at that time the Bob Barker realized they were over five hours from the deltas, infinitely farther than they had planned for.
Having already been in the water for around eight hours, the delta crew members were devastated when they heard the news. Some began to show signs of hypothermia and all were cold/hungry.
This is huge. A giant story that wasn’t given headlines during the campaign, likely because it was simply an internal incident. It didn’t tell a story about clashes in the ocean or people hopping from one ship to another. So Whale Wars gives us some nice insight into things we may not otherwise know, even as avid supporters of Sea Shepherd.
